Vietnam to increase added value of coffee

Vietnam should encourage domestic and foreign investors to focus on
producing high value-added coffee, since it is one of the country’s
leading agricultural exports, according to the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa
Association (VICOFA).

Vietnam has a total coffee
cultivation area of 614,545 hectares, with 92 percent of cultivation
areas located in the Central Highlands provinces. Each year, the country
exports 1 million tonnes of coffee beans, generating an export turnover
of more than 3.4 billion USD.

Chairman of the VICOFA Luong Van
Tu said Vietnamese coffee accounted for 20 percent of the world’s total
production volume. However, the country only generated 2 percent of the
global coffee value, adding that each coffee producing household earned
around 2 USD from the sale of one kilogramme of coffee beans.

According to the master plan for coffee development by 2030, domestic
and foreign businesses will benefit from incentives to upgrade and build
integrated processing plants with a capacity of more than 135,000
tonnes per year, including the production of 60,000 tonnes of instant
coffee.

VICOFA suggested the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development develop a detailed plan with a focus on mechanisms and
policies to develop the coffee processing network in line with
cultivation areas.-VNA